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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Does your employer have tuition reimbursement? [/quote]

Yes, a small amount can be reimbursed. But my points still stand. I'm mid-career prof with a busy job and very busy home life caring for multiple kids and parents. Not trying to be snarky, but how the hell do I float a PT masters program on top of that both time wise and financially? I would love to hear suggestions on this honestly. Have some of you done this with these kinds of constraints?

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I got my masters part time while I worked full time (and a busy full time job at that), but I was single and without children.

It was a conscious decision I made: to get a masters degree before my life got too complicated.

It's fine that you didn't make that decision, but I don't think it's fair of you to downplay the value of a master's or even what it shows.  Most brick-and-mortar master's programs involve some sort of thesis and a lot more collaborative work than a regular bachelor's degree.  They also require a higher level of research.  (I'm not talking about online degrees, and many employers do distinguish between the two.)

If you are talking about administrative jobs, the trend I see is that many administrative jobs are actually a bunch of functions rolled into one.  So while there may be a secretarial/admin component, they also want that person to be able to write, edit, do other things as needed.

Also, as a bachelor's becomes more common, requiring a master's is a way of narrowing the pool of applicants.  That's not a new thing.  There are many jobs that once only required a high school degree, but then those positions changed and the applicant pool changed, so they started requiring more.

Many government positions will allow you to substitute experience for education.  It all depends on the position.

Without knowing what your background is and specifically what you are looking for, it's difficult to know how to advise you.  If you are mid-career and want to advance but advancement requires additional degrees, there's really no other answer -- unless you know someone who can help you get your foot in the door.

For what it's worth, I have a master's degree from a prestigious institution, and I feel like my options are limited for other reasons.   I think the bigger picture is that there are just too many applicants for each job out there.  So while some jobs require degrees, others will require such specific experience (like experience with X software that only our company uses), that they eliminate people that way.

Personally, I think a lot of hiring is done through networking.  They post jobs for the appearance of fairness, but private and public sector, most people prefer to hire someone they know or someone someone they know knows or someone with whom they once interacted with on some level.  And this is more true for the D.C. region than other places.

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I'm not downplaying a masters degree. It's just not required. I think it's great to have. Especially if it's in a field you care about.  I can see why firms would prefer a candidate with a masters. I think masters degrees can help improve how you think about problems. And how you collaborate with others. And most of all, it gives your network a boost. I just don't agree that it should be a baseline requirement that's not required to perform well. Your thesis work at Stanford with 2 years of experience does not out do my decade of consulting work in emerging economies.  But yet here in DC, it seems this means we are now on the same playing field (not so much in my old city).

Obviously, a solution would be to go back and get a masters. All of us don't have the capacity to do that. I guess this means I'm SOL.

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